The global pandemic has hit Simon Larsen hard. He has been forced to close his architecture practice and declare bankruptcy due to the ongoing lockdowns. He has not only lost the practice but also the family home. He spends his days in a funk on the couch in the tiny flat where they now live while his more than capable wife, Tansy, works to support them all.
His mother-in-law, Gloria, is a formidable (some might even say terrifying) woman who raised Tansy and her siblings as a single parent after their father, David, abandoned them at the after an all-too-familiar office affair. Despite their estrangement, when news of David’s death reaches Gloria, she decides to hold a memorial in the garden of Tansy’s childhood friend Naveen. The only problem is that the contractors who Naveen had commissioned to transform his backyard have quit and it’s now up to Simon to get off the couch and undertake the job himself. But he only has a week to do it.
Adding to this already pressure cooker situation is the arrival of David’s daughter from his second marriage. Free-spirited and unconventional, Monica crash lands on the couch, crowding the already small flat to bursting point. When the foundations of his marriage start to look shaky, Simon feels like the universe is personally conspiring against him.
Both heartwarming and poignant, Jordan’s characters are at once engaging and eccentric. As the story progresses we learn that far from bringing you down, your family, despite their foibles, can lift you up so you can see yourself again.
Dinner with the Schnabels shines with Jordan’s trademark wit and humour as she offers her readers a glimpse into the life of a family experiencing some very contemporary challenges.
Reviewed by Maryanne Vagg
Listen to a podcast about Prettier is she Smiled More by Toni Jordan
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Toni Jordan is an award-winning, internationally best-selling novelist.
Her debut novel, Addition, was published in 2008, was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and won best debut fiction in the 2008 Indie awards. In the UK, Addition was a Richard and Judy Summer Read.
Her second novel, Fall Girl, was published in November 2010 in Australia, and also in the UK, Germany, France and Taiwan. Nine Days was published in 2012 to widespread acclaim and is currently a Victorian VCE English text. Our Tiny, Useless Hearts, was published in 2016 and The Fragments was published in 2018. Her most recent novels, Dinner with the Schnabels and Prettier if she Smiled More, tell the ongoing story of the Schnabel family.
Toni has been a columnist for the Age and her short stories and articles have appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Courier Mail, the Herald Sun, the Australian and the Monthly.
Toni taught Fiction Writing at RMIT University from 2007 until 2016 and was RMIT’s Sessional Teacher of the Year in 2014, and for some years also taught novel writing at Faber Academy. She has presented key-note speeches and workshops, appeared on panels at numerous writers festivals and been a writer-in-residence for schools and organisations. Her students and protégées include published novelists and memoirists. She holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Queensland and a PhD in Creative Arts from Deakin University.
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